Instructor: Robert Donahoo

            408 Evans Complex

            Office Phone: 936-294-1421

            Home Phone: 281-298-1442 (no calls after 9 p.m.)

            Office Hours: 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday

Class Meets:    11:00 a.m., Tuesday and Thursday, in Evans 260

Texts: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol 2, 5^th edition, Baym et al.

                In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway

                The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien

By definition, a literature "survey course" such as this one is meant to be inclusive—a daunting task considering the number of books published in the United States since the end of the Civil War. This class will not succeed in climbing the mountain of inclusiveness, though it will demand that students read a large number of texts. However, it will seek to encourage students to see and form connections, as well as question connections others have claimed as "obvious." In short, though it will be primarily a reading course, it will require a great deal of thought, and each student needs to think of himself or herself as an intellectual. To help us get started in the process of connecting, the course will undertake to define the four major periods or styles or literary movements often used to describe American writing since 1865: Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. These broad headings will be challenged and redefined as we consider not just the canonical texts that generally define these terms but also texts by ethnic minorities, women, and others sometimes considered as less or even non-literary. By the end of the term, students should have a grasp of these terms as well as be able to question their validity.

Simultaneously, as a "reading" course, this one will stress the need to analyze the reading process itself, asking questions such as: what happens when a person reads? why do some people find one meaning and some another? what is the effect of reading? how does a text encourage and discourage particular readings? To answer these questions, students need a critical vocabulary, and throughout the course, I will stress the need to use accurately terms such as "image," "plot," "symbol," "novel," and "poem." By term’s end, students should have a strong literary vocabulary—or know where to learn about such terms.

Finally, this course will include a component designed to make students more aware of the discussion of literary works that goes on, largely unnoticed, within our society. This involves becoming aware of the theoretical/critical commentaries that exist concerning literature. By term’s end, students should be able to read a literary text and know how to seek out the discussion the text has generated.

Of course, you’re probably wondering, "How am I going to earn my grade for this class?" The answer is that each student’s grade for the course will be determined by 3 major factors.

First, we have will have three essay exams. Two of these will occur during the semester, and the third will occur during the time scheduled by the University for this course’s final exam. The exams are of equal value. Each exam will focus on the material covered most recently in the course, but students may need to refer to concepts from previously tested material in order to do their best work. Also, each day a student attends an entire class session, he/she will earn one extra credit point toward the next exam. All exams must be written in a "blue book" and use some form of ink. My eyes are aging too rapidly due to the stress of trying to read faint pencil scratches. Collectively, a student’s three exams will determine one-third of his/her course grade.

Second, each student will prepare an annotated bibliography over three of the texts we will read: Clemens’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Hemingway’s In Our Time, and Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, "In the Waiting Room." This project will consist of bibliographic entries and annotations for three articles/essays. All of these articles/essays will be chosen by me and found on reserve in the library. This assignment can be found on my web page by using the link labeled, 361 ANNOTATION ASSIGNMENT. This project will produce three grades (one for each text), with the major focus of the grading being on the mechanics of bibliographic form and clarity of the annotations ("clarity" includes grammatical correctness). Collectively, the grades on these three annotations will form one-third of each student’s course grade.

Third, each student will write two papers. One will explicate a piece of American fiction produced since the Civil War, and the other will explicate an American poem produced since the Civil War. The specific texts and instructions for these papers are can be found on my web page by using the link labeled, 361 EXPLICATION ASSIGNMENTS. These papers are of equal value, and collectively their grades will determine one-third of each student’s course grade.

The only other factor that could affect a student’s grade is attendance. Generally, I try to use attendance as a positive inducement—something reflected in my giving extra credit points for each day a student is in class. However, excessive absences will not be tolerated. They discourage other students and me. Anyone missing more than 10 days of class (that’s almost half the course) will see a lowering of their course grade by a minimum of one letter.

Thursday, 1/10 Introduction to the course: Reading American Literature

Dickinson: poem 1078

Whitman: "The Wound-Dresser"

Tuesday, 1/15 Clemens, "Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses" & Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Chapters 1-14)

Thursday, 1/17 Clemens, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Chapters 15-30)

Tuesday, 1/22 Clemens, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Chapters 31-end)

Thursday, 1/24 James, "The Great Good Place"

First Annotation on Huck Finn due

Tuesday, 1/29 Jewett, "The Foreigner"

Thursday, 1/31 Chesnutt, "The Goophered Grapevine" & "The Wife of His Youth"

Tuesday, 2/5 Crane, "The Open Boat,"

Thursday, 2/7 Exam One

Tuesday, 2/12 Robinson, "Richard Cory," "Miniver Cheevy" & "Mr. Flood’s Party"

                                Frost, "The Pasure," Mowing," Home Burial," The Oven Bird," "'Out, Out--'"

Thursday, 2/14      Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (www.bartleby.com/200/sw4.html), and                                              "Journey of the Magi"

Tuesday, 2/19        Stevens, "A High-Toned Old Christian Woman" & "Anecdote of the Jar"

                                Williams, "Spring and All," "The Red Wheelbarrow," & "Burning the Christmas Greens"

First Explication Due

Thursday, 2/21 Fitzgerald, "Babylon Revisited" and "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" (www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/bernice/bernice.html)

Tuesday, 2/26 Hemingway, In Our Time (pages 11-50)

Thursday, 2/28 Hemingway, In Our Time (pages 51-103)

                                Last day to drop a fall course without receiving an "F"; last day to resign without receiving "WP" or "WF"

Tuesday, 3/5 Hemingway, In Our Time (pages 105-157)

                        Second Annotation Due on In Our Time

Thursday, 3/7             Faulkner, "Barn Burning"

                                    Hughes, all poems in Norton Text & "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain"                                  (http://past.thenation.com/historic/bhm2000/19260223hughes.html)

Tuesday, 3/12 No Class: Spring Break

Thursday, 3/14 No Class: Spring Break

Tuesday, 3/19            Wright, "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" & "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow" (http://newdeal.feri.org/fwp/fwp03.htm)

Thursday, 3/21           Exam Two

Tuesday, 3/26 Welty, "Petrified Man"

                                 O’Connor, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" & "Good Country People"

Thursday, 3/28 Baldwin, "Going to Meet the Man"

                                Roth, "Defender of the Faith"

Tuesday, 4/2        Lowell, "Memories of West Street and Lepke" & "For the Union Dead"

                                Ginsberg, "Howl"

                                Hayden, "Homage to the Empress of the Blues," "Those Winter Sundays"

Thursday, 4/4        Bishop, "The Fish," "At the Fishhouses," "Questions of Travel," & "In the Waiting Room"

Third Annotation Due on Bishop

Tuesday, 4/9        Paley, "A Conversation with My Father"

                                Barthleme, "A Manual for Sons"

Thursday, 4/11 Morrison, "Recitatif"

                                Walker, "Everyday Use"

Tuesday, 4/16        Second Explication Due

Thursday, 4/18 Carver, "Cathedral"

                                Hannah, "Midnight and I'm not Famous Yet"

Tuesday, 4.23        O'Brien, The Things They Carried

Thursday, 4/25      O'Brien, The Things They Carried

Tuesday, 4/30 O’Brien, The Things They Carried

Final Exam for Graduating Seniors Must be Taken on this Date

An annotated bibliography is simply a list of critical texts containing:
--a complete bibliographic entry for each text (students must use MLA style);
--a brief summary of the major arguments and ideas in the critical text;
--an informed response to the arguments and ideas in the critical text.
All the components must be on double-spaced, typed pages, with the bibliographic entry at the top of the page.

 For this assignment, students are required to use one critical articles on reserve in the library for this course for each of three texts assigned for the course. The articles, in the order students will need to deal with them are:

                        "Huckleberry Finn; or, Consequences" by Stacey Margolis

"The Unifying Consciousness of a Divided Conscience: Nick Adams as Author of In Our Time" by Debra A. Moddelmog

"The Geography of Gender: Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘In the Waiting Room’" by Lee Edelman

These bibliographic entries and annotations will be due at different times in the semester.
--The Huck Finn annotation is due Thursday, January 24.
--The In Our Time annotation is due Tuesday, March 5.
--The Bishop annotation is due Thursday, April 4.
This schedule is designed for students to benefit from commentary on the first annotation as they prepare the second and third one. It also allows time for students to meet with me to discuss specific problems that may arise as they work on this part of the course.

 In preparing each bibliographic entry and annotation, students should follow the steps below.

 The key is knowing what kind of text you are writing an entry for: is it an original article in a journal, an original essay in a collection of essays, a journal article reprinted in a collection of essays? The cover sheet for each article should provide you with adequate information to determine exactly what your essay is. Anyone who is unsure should check with the instructor. The example entry below is for a journal article—the same type of source for the three essays you are working with.

Spangler, George M. "Pudd'nhead Wilson: A Parable of Property." American Literature 42 (1970): 28-37.

 Step 2: Read the article and mark/note its main points.

Below are the kind of notes I made when reading the Spangler article used as an example in step one:

*most interpretations judge the book by either its racial themes or by its view of "environmental determinism"

**"It is a book pervaded from start to finish with the very obsession with property which is its theme, yet fully in control of the revelation it offers about the moral and spiritual consequences of this obsession."--this is the central thesis.

*uses as support the beginning and ending of the plot in money issues: the theft that awakens Roxy to her danger & Tom being sold to creditors.

*analyzes Tom claiming, "Tom makes sense only as a nearly allegorical figure of the obsession with property to the exclusion of all other human concerns."

*analyzes Wilson as a "foil" to Tom--the man unconcerned with possession.

*analyzes Roxy and observes that when she acts of desire for money she causes harm but when she acts out of love, she becomes a sympathetic figure.

*analyzes Judge Driscoll and notes the same pattern of satire/praise seen in the case of Roxy--though it is less love than his adherence to his code that makes him sympathetic..

*notes that the Twins show how money leads to slavery in their presentation of their past.

**concludes the book is related to Twain's biographical financial problems and is definitely consistent, coherent and unified.

 Step 3: Develop these main ideas into a coherent summary.

In the paragraph below, you will see how I formed the notes listed above into a coherent paragraph. By "coherent," I don’t mean that I managed to put every note into the paragraph. Rather, I arranged the notes so that the overall sense of what the article was trying to communicate is made clear. Also, you will notice that each time I mention something specifically mentioned in the article, I cite the article parenthetically. I use citations when I quote as well as when I simply refer to ideas found in the article.

Spangler argues that despite criticism labeling Pudd'nhead Wilson as a flawed work focusing on the issues of either race or "environmental determinism" (28), the novel is in fact a highly unified and consistent work concerning "obsession with property" and "the moral and spiritual consequences of this obsession" (29). Spangler supports this assertion by noting how property issues (the theft of money and Tom being sold by creditors) frame the novel and by an analysis of the novel's major characters. He comments that "Tom makes sense only as a nearly allegorical figure of the obsession with property to the exclusion of all other human concerns" (31), and he shows that Wilson serves as Tom's "foil" (32) or negative image. In addition, he shows that both Roxy and Judge Driscoll reflect both obsession and rejection of property, though each becomes sympathetic only when she/he opts to act by some motive other than financial gain: love in the case of Roxy and his aristocratic code in the case of the Judge (34-36). He even, quite briefly, notes that the Twins' story of their youth demonstrates "slavery to property, to economic motives . . . reduces one to property, to slavery" (37)--exactly the consequence Tom suffers.

 Step 4: Evaluate the article's ideas in light of your own interpretation of the literary text. It helps to have finished reading the text before trying to do this.

 In the paragraph below, you will find my "evaluation" of the article. While this begins with my initial response, I don’t make my "feelings" the centerpiece of my evaluation. Rather, I try to confront or deal with the article’s ideas. You may note that I make reference to another article I’ve read. You probably will not have that resource, but you can bring to bear the knowledge and insights that have been covered in lectures and discussions in class.

On first reading, Spangler's argument struck me as totally convincing. Everything he says is well-supported and reasonable, leading to the conclusion that he is right to direct readers away from attempts to understand the novel only in terms of race or environmental determinism. However, subsequent readings and thought lead me to notice two things. First, there is great deal of the novel with Spangler ignores. In focusing of character and plot, he tends to ignore the novel's language and humor, and, as Marvin Fisher and Michael Elliott point out in their article, "Pudd'nhead Wilson: Half a Dog Is Worse than None," language and humor in the novel create an impression at least as strong as its plot and characters. Second, race and the role of environment in determining personality are not issues that can just be tossed aside for a focus on property. Both play key roles in the novel. And while they may not create or sustain the novel's unity, to ignore them would be about as useful as ignoring an elephant in a living room when one attempts to describe that room's decor. Even if Spangler is correct that a focus on property is what guided the writing of the novel, its use of race and environmental determinism inevitably draw readers' interest. While Spangler's arguments should not be ignored, I can't help wishing he had found ways to accommodate these two key issues in his analysis.

To help you, here is a second example of a biographic entry and annotation. The source is, as with all the essays you will be assigned, an article in a scholarly journal. If I added a proper MLA format heading that gives my name and other information, this page look much as I expect your submissions to me to look.

Dunleavy, Linda. "Sanctuary, Sexual Difference, and the Problem of Rape." Studies in American Fiction

            24 (1996): 171-191.

Dunleavy analyzes Faulkner’s novel Sanctuary from the perspective of gender to discover what the novel says about rape. Her discovery is that, while criticism has tended to view women in the novel as "inherently rapable" (171), the novel actually shows that rape is an act of violence resulting not from biological weakness in women but from social "configurations of power" (172). By this phrase, Dunleavy means that rape occurs as women are made to appear socially powerless. Thus Temple Drake does not cause or invite rape by being sexy but by being in a position of weakness. Moreover, Popeye does not rape Temple because he is attracted to her but because he wants to demonstrate or claim a power over her. Thus the famous physical rape in the novel actually mirrors other relationships of domination in the novel--particularly that of Horace and his wife and that of Temple and her father.

The attractiveness of this argument is that it de-sensationalizes the novel. It helps readers to see that the rape is not there to shock or attract readers but to emphasize a social aspect of Southern life during the 1920s. It makes "rape" a metaphor for the avid use of power Faulkner constantly displays in the novel. The problem with it is that it may intellectualize for some readers, particularly males, an act that is reprehensible. In other words, this article, though powerful, does not totally convince me that Faulkner has made a good choice in using rape as a metaphor for power relationships in the American South.

EXPLICATE: [Latin, explicatus, pp of explicare, literally, "to unfold"] 1. to give a detailed explanation of. 2. to develop the implications of: analyze logically.

EXPLICATION DE TEXTE: [French, literally, "explanation of text"] 1. a method of literary criticism involving detailed analysis of each part of a literary work.

As part of the requirements for this course, students must explicate two works of American literature that have been written since 1865. One of these works must be a poem while the other must be a short story. The syllabus shows due dates for these papers (Tuesday February 19 and Tuesday, April 16). It does not matter which explication is submitted first so long as both forms are covered.

A literary explication is a method of textual analysis that has two major distinguishing features:

1. It "reads" by discovering the large and small literary elements that combine to form the text.

2. It seeks to establish that all these elements are unified by a dominant idea that controls the text. This dominant idea is what, for the purposes of this course, I will call a "meaning." I use this term to stress that students are looking for more than a topic or general subject such as "the nature of love" or "how human beings cope with tragedy." They are looking for a specific statement concerning such topics: a statement such as "Love is best understood as the ability to exploit others without consequence" or "Males cope with tragedy by ignoring it and concentrating on exciting sporting events."

Most students have written something like a literary explication, but few have done so consciously and seldom with careful attention to literary elements—plot, character, symbols, image patterns, etc.—as literary elements. This assignment requires that you do so.

The first step, however, is to select the literary text you wish to explicate. In order to insure that students select texts sufficiently challenging (as well as within my range of knowledge), I ask that you select a text from the list below:

Short Stories:

--"The Outcasts of Poker Flat" by Bret Harte

--"A New England Nun" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

--"Neighbor Rosicky" by Willa Cather (not in text, but available in the library)

--"Flowering Judas" by Katherine Anne Porter

--"The Magic Barrel" by Bernard Malamud

--"Looking for Mr. Green," by Saul Bellow

--"Separating" by John Updike

--"Shiloh" by Bobbie Ann Mason (not in text, but available in the library)

Poems:

--"Madonna of the Evening Flowers" by Amy Lowell

--"The Harlem Dancer" by Claude McKay

--"Poetry" by Marianne Moore

--"Janet Waking" by John Crowe Ransom

--"Second Air Force" by Randall Jarrell

--"The Death of a Toad" by Richard Wilbur

--"Daddy" or "Blackberrying" by Sylvia Plath

--"Bearded Oaks" by Robert Penn Warren

--"The Porcupine" by Galway Kinnell

--"Shirt" by Robert Pinsky

--"Poem in Which I Refuse Contemplation" by Rita Dove

These lists are not long since they exclude writers read during the course, but all are important authors in American literature. All should prove challenging.

The second step is to analyze the text by discovering and listing the various literary devices that combine to form the text. Of course, no paper can use every literary device, but students should aim to look at as many as they can find. For a piece of fiction, they should probably consider such devices as plot, characterization, setting, tone, point of view, symbols, and image patterns. For poetry, image patterns and symbols probably are dominant, but students should also consider if the poem is dramatic (does it have a definite speaker and audience?) or lyric (the poem appears to be the thoughts/feelings of the persona writing the poem) as well as tone, characterization, and plot to the extent these are relevant. To do such analysis, students will likely need to read their text more than once. I also encourage students to go to the library and examine critical studies of their text, but I also offer this precaution: I don’t want to simply see a collection of other people’s opinions and insights in your final paper. Rather, each student should use insights gained from research in combination with his/her own insights about the text.

A third step is to be sure each element is "characterized." By this, I mean that each element needs to be described or labeled in some way. Don’t just say that a poem has a tone; tell me that the tone is "happy," "playful," "depressing," etc. Similarly, don’t simply tell me the plot. Rather, tell me what kind of plot it is, such as "comic" (it works toward a happy ending) or "tragic" (it works toward a revelation of suffering) or educational (it works toward the reader or a character learning something).

A fourth step is what I call "doing the math." Students need to take all the elements found in a text and "add them up" into a meaning statement or statement of theme for their text. Thus, is a person were to read, for instance, Robert Pinsky’s poem, "Shirt" and find there images of working, symbols of slavery, a happy tone, a lyric form, and a summer job setting, that person might well write a meaning statement for the poem such as, "Robert Pinsky’s poem ‘Shirt’ suggests that summer jobs are joyous experiences of hard work, just like slavery." This example, of course, suggests one problem: it’s possible to come up with a meaning statement that defies common sense or our common understanding of language. In this case, "slavery" is not generally understood or connected to joy. When this occurs, the student should examine the poem again to see if the characterization of the elements is correct. Perhaps the "chains" initially seen as symbols of slavery were actually the golden kind that is, more appropriately seen as jewelry and therefore symbols of wealth. Nevertheless, at the end of this step, students should have a clear statement of the meaning of their text.

Now students are ready for the hard step: writing the paper. Let me emphasize that writing should not begin until the task of analysis is complete, just as the meaning statement should not be written before analysis uncovers the text’s elements. Writing should involve producing a brief introduction that uses the meaning statement found through explication as the thesis for the paper. Writing should also produce a catalogue of the elements found, arranged in order of their relevance to the meaning statement/thesis. Each element found needs to be discussed in its own paragraph, proved to be part of the text, and its connection to the meaning statement established. Finally, writing should produce a brief conclusion, often focusing on the question, "So what?" This is the point in the paper where a student can agree or disagree with the idea found in the text or where the quality of the story can be evaluated based on its successful or unsuccessful use of elements.

A final step is to proofread the paper, making sure that it is formatted according to MLA style and free of mechanical errors.

The more mechanical aspects of the assignment are:
--the papers should be approximately 5-10 pages in length. The variation is due to the fact that explications of a story, because they have more elements, are often longer than those of a poem.
--the papers must follow MLA style for documentation and format. A paper that does not follow MLA format will be returned unread with a grade of "F," and there will be no opportunity for revision.
--the papers are due 2/19 and 4/16 as listed above and in the syllabus. Because of constraints on my time for grading, no late papers will be accepted.

 The criteria I will use in grading the paper are:
--mechanical and stylistic correctness. Be sure to read your own writing, and check, don’t guess, about MLA rules.
--evidence of careful reading of the literary text. Be sure you don’t settle for the surface of the story or poems you select.
--evidence of academic research. Use the library—books and journals—not just the internet.
--evidence of an analysis based of examination of literary elements.
--a definite, argumentative thesis.

We will practice some of this analysis in class, but students should feel free to ask questions and send me rough drafts—particularly draft thesis statements.

 Finally, take this advice: start early and have fun. When questions arise, contact me. I would greatly like to see your thesis statement before you write the paper. That can be done through a conference in my office hours or via e-mail.

Good luck.